July 16, 2023

This is a book collecting six of Tanizaki's non-fiction essays, starting off with the famous title essay 陰翳礼讃, which has been translated into English as "In Praise of Shadows".

Tanizaki's prose style is pretty difficult for a language learner, both in his vocabulary choices and in orthographical choices like use of kanji for "grammar" words that are more usually written in kana in more modern texts. However I felt it was rich enough to reward taking it at a slow pace, re-reading tricky sentences and thinking about the points the author was making.

Note that if you are searching for this on Aozora you will find the title essay but not the others collected in this book. In particular you will miss the excellent 厠のいろいろ where Tanizaki discusses toilets through the ages and reveals his best Japanese loo experience...

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pm215 graded
on July 23, 2024
pm215 graded
on May 7, 2024
pm215 graded
on December 17, 2023
harder than振仮名の歴史L39
pm215 graded
on September 11, 2023
pm215 graded
on July 31, 2023
similar in difficulty to幼少時代L43
pm215 graded
on July 30, 2023
similar in difficulty to古都L44
pm215 graded
on July 26, 2023
easier than吾輩は猫であるL48
pm215 graded
on July 26, 2023
similar in difficulty to雪国L46
pm215 graded
on July 17, 2023
harder than翻訳夜話L40
pm215 graded
on July 16, 2023
harder than御宿かわせみL40